Across the Horizon cover art

Across the Horizon

Across the Horizon

Written by: Bob Holmes
Listen for free

About this listen

Bob Holmes of SUSS hosts Across the Horizon (formerly Ambient Country). Each month he and a special monthly guest explore the wide open country of ambient and experimental instrumental music, featuring performances that evoke open skies, endless roads, and a sense of drifting between worlds, taking listeners across the horizon.

www.flowstate.fmMarcuse LLC
Music
Episodes
  • Across the Horizon Ep. 59: Clarice Jensen
    Feb 18 2026

    On today’s episode of Across the Horizon, Bob Holmes of SUSS is joined by his co-host, the cellist and composer Clarice Jensen, to discuss the music of her friends and mentors: Max Richter, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Stars of the Lid, and more. She also discusses her latest releases, including her submissions to the new Across the Horizon Vol. 2 series.



    This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.flowstate.fm/subscribe
    Show More Show Less
    1 hr
  • Across the Horizon Ep. 58: David Moore (Pt. 2)
    Feb 4 2026
    On today’s episode of Across the Horizon, host Bob Holmes of SUSS is joined once again by David Moore in the second part of his two-part conversation. David’s known for his work with Bing & Ruth and Cowboy Sadness, as well as his collaborations with Steve Gunn and Stephanie Coleman. In part two, he brings along a beautiful set of solo piano pieces from artists including Debussy, Philip Glass, Dr. John, Brother Theotis, and more. He also discusses Graze the Bell, a collection of solo piano pieces he released last week on RVNG Intl.Flow State also posed a few questions to Moore over email about his musical journey generally and his work on Graze the Bell in particular – that conversation follows the streaming links. While playing Graze the Bell, listen for the influences he discussed with Bob on the two Across the Horizon episodes. We’re pairing the new record with one of those influences, Glenn Gould’s Goldberg Variations, specifically the 1981 version, recorded a year before he passed away.Graze the Bell - David Moore (48m, no vocals)Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube Music / Amazon Music / Bandcamp / TidalGoldberg Variations (1981) - Glenn Gould (51m, no vocals)Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube Music / Amazon Music / TidalWhat’s your earliest memory of music?It’s really just flashes of many memories more than any complete one, and it’s not even that I remember it physically, but I do remember this feeling of being a tiny little thing and always bashing away on pots and pans. Apparently I had this compulsion to empty the kitchen cabinets and arrange everything in a big drum set on the floor. Just BANG BANG BANG. Bless my parents for putting up with it honestly. Maybe something that’s underappreciated is that behind a lot of drummers are very patient parents.How did you start playing piano? What was the first piano you played?I started playing the piano when I was six years old. I told my folks I wanted to learn, so one day I came home and we had a piano in the basement. That’s how they were. It was this little Kimball spinet that we traded up for a Yamaha a few years later. As for when I feel like I really started PLAYING the instrument, that was later. I was one of two drummers in my high school jazz band when the pianist, who was quite good, died tragically in a car accident in the middle of sophomore year. They needed someone to replace her, and the teacher knew I studied classical piano so he sort of volun-told me to switch instruments mid-year. I didn’t know anything about improvising or about jazz, but as I started learning I just became obsessed. That’s when everything changed. I had clarity. By the end of that year I had effectively quit playing the drumset and oriented my whole life and future around the piano. I still think about that girl almost every day. To be quite frank it’s been a heavy debt to carry.What were the early records or songs that pointed you in the musical directions you ultimately pursued in your solo work and as Bing & Ruth?The first time I heard Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” it was less like I was hearing music and more like I was learning about a whole new sense. Sight, sound, touch, taste, smell, and… whatever this feeling was. It seems obvious, but the more you open yourself to being moved by music, the more you’ll get moved by music, and so it just kept happening. I found Bach, then Chopin and Debussy. Then as I got older and some of my mental health struggles started to present themselves, I had this whole special world I could go to for relief. By that point I also had McCoy Tyner and Bill Evans in the mix too. All this music became a ground to stand on when no other ground felt solid. Then, one day when I was 19 I stumbled into a Barnes & Noble in Kansas City and heard Steve Reich’s New York Counterpoint, and everything just immediately clicked into place. That’s when the whole thing became about developing this language, a voice to channel the emotive qualities of this more romantic and impressionistic piano music I had been drawn to with the motion and philosophies of minimalist composition. I’m still eating off that sandwich to be honest.The new record is solo piano. Tell us about the experiences and motivations around focusing on the instrument in this form.Every direction I have grown as a performer, composer, and human has come out of the piano specifically. It has always been this window through which I looked at and tried to make sense of the world, and it’s where almost everything I do musically starts and returns to. So for Graze the Bell, there’s something in me that feels like it’s important to honor that source, because in the end what I’m honoring when I do that is the human singular. So much of music and the performing arts more broadly is about interplay – a reaction sprouting from the space between us, but there is something so different about performing alone. It lets you explore more thoroughly the ...
    Show More Show Less
    1 hr
  • Across the Horizon Ep. 57: David Moore (Pt. 1)
    Jan 21 2026

    On today’s episode of Across the Horizon, Bob Holmes from SUSS is joined once again by composer and pianist David Moore (Bing & Ruth, Cowboy Sadness). In this first of two parts, they discuss deep listening and solo piano pieces, including artists Glenn Gould, Morton Feldman, Sergei Prokofiev, and Emahoy Guèbrou. Bob and David also discuss the music and recording process behind David's forthcoming album of solo piano works, Graze the Bell.



    This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.flowstate.fm/subscribe
    Show More Show Less
    1 hr
No reviews yet